Sunday, August 28

Friday the Paper of Record's Op-Ed page featured a public fluffing of former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, who just announced he's running for governor of New York, performed by John P. Gregg, who is a former speechwriter for Weld.

That's not the catch. That much was admitted up front. Gregg offered this revealing anecdote:

Of course, Bill Weld's real specialty is to use his playfully naughty personality to dominate news coverage and soften his patrician background.

In early 1993, when he was trying to raise his profile for a potential White House bid, I heard Mick Jagger, in an interview, say he preferred Friedrich von Hayek's laissez-faire economics to Bill Clinton's more Keynesian views at the time. Bill Weld was a big Hayek fan and told me to put it in some remarks. When he made the speech, he added the flourish: "I've always been a Stones man, and this confirms my faith," which proved the lead anecdote in a favorable story in The Economist.

Turns out that ol' Jumpin' Jack Flash himself did express his admiration for the work of von Hayek (though without the Clinton reference) all right. In an interview with Wayne Campbell, the excellent host of Wayne's World.